Method for operating a hospital information system

ABSTRACT

A method of operating a hospital information system, and a hospital information system are disclosed. In at least one embodiment, the method includes providing a taskflow editing tool with a limited number of editing options to a user; creating a taskflow defining a number of tasks and connections of the tasks by the user using the taskflow editing tool; and performing an automated test run of the created taskflow, wherein the automated test run is checked according to a number of criteria and wherein results of the check are reported to the user.

FIELD

At least one embodiment of the present invention generally relates tohospital information systems, and in particular to a method foroperating a hospital information system wherein taskflows comprising anumber of tasks and their connections defining certain operationalprocedures within a hospital environment are provided.

BACKGROUND

A hospital information system is a comprehensive, integrated informationsystem designed to manage the administrative, financial and clinicalaspects of a hospital or other medical installations. These hospitalinformation systems are usually based on a network of server and clientmachines and help to organize the medical treatment comprisingdiagnostic tasks such as radiology or other examinations as well astreatment tasks. In order to organize and optimize the operationalprocedures within a hospital environment, a hospital information systemusually provides workflows or taskflows defining a number of tasks andtheir connections in order to schedule, for example, the treatment of apatient and coordinate the clinical processes. The organization of theseworksteps into information technology based taskflow helps to optimizethe treatment of a patient and the efficiency in a hospital environment.

During creation of a taskflow a high number of boundary conditions haveto be taken into account: the taskflows have to be adjusted to theresources available in each specific hospital environment to avoidresource conflicts and, for example, a possible loss of data during theexecution of the taskflow. Furthermore, since in a clinical environmentthese taskflows relate to the treatment of human individuals, a highlevel of fail-safety and integrity has to be maintained at all times,because errors in the taskflow may put a patient in harm's way.

To achieve this high level of safety and integrity, these taskflows aretherefore usually created by approved personnel chosen by themanufacturer of the hospital information system. This guarantees thatthe manufacturer of the hospital information system can ensure thequality of each taskflow. If new taskflows are to be integrated into anexisting hospital information system, the manufacturer is usuallyinstructed accordingly and these new taskflows are then created by themanufacturer and introduced into the hospital information system with anupgrade at a later time.

SUMMARY

Due to the above requirements, the inventors have recognized thathospital information systems therefore lack flexibility regarding thecreation of new taskflows or modifications to existing taskflowsdirectly in the hospital environment. Since every update or upgrade ofthe hospital information system has to be approved by the manufacturerto ensure fail-safety and integrity, modifications to an existing systemusually take a long time to be installed on site.

Accordingly, in at least one embodiment, a method of operating thehospital information system is provided that allows the user of ahospital information system to modify, create, store, execute, copy andrelay taskflows during normal operation quickly and safely.

At least one embodiment of the present invention provides a method ofoperating a hospital information system that ensures the fail-safety andintegrity of the created taskflows without the need of intervention bythe manufacturer of the hospital information system.

at least one embodiment of the present invention provides an improvedmethod of operating a hospital information system which guaranties agood performance and the optimal use of resources by the taskflowscreated in the hospital environment.

To the accomplishment of the foregoing and related ends, the inventionthen comprises the features hereinafter fully described and particularlypointed out in the claims, the following description and drawing settingforth in detail certain illustrative embodiments of the invention, thesebeing indicative, however, of but several of the various ways in whichthe principles of the invention may be employed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING

The above brief description as well as further objects, features andadvantages of the present invention will be more fully appreciated byreferring to the following description of a presently preferred butnonetheless illustrative embodiment in accordance with the presentinvention when taken in connection with a sole FIGURE of theaccompanying drawing,

The FIGURE is a schematic diagram illustrating a client machine and aserver machine of a hospital information system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EXAMPLE EMBODIMENT

Various example embodiments will now be described more fully withreference to the accompanying drawings in which only some exampleembodiments are shown. Specific structural and functional detailsdisclosed herein are merely representative for purposes of describingexample embodiments. The present invention, however, may be embodied inmany alternate forms and should not be construed as limited to only theexample embodiments set forth herein.

Accordingly, while example embodiments of the invention are capable ofvarious modifications and alternative forms, embodiments thereof areshown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described indetail. It should be understood, however, that there is no intent tolimit example embodiments of the present invention to the particularforms disclosed. On the contrary, example embodiments are to cover allmodifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the scope ofthe invention. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout thedescription of the figures.

It will be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. maybe used herein to describe various elements, these elements should notbe limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish oneelement from another. For example, a first element could be termed asecond element, and, similarly, a second element could be termed a firstelement, without departing from the scope of example embodiments of thepresent invention. As used herein, the term “and/or,” includes any andall combinations of one or more of the associated listed items.

It will be understood that when an element is referred to as being“connected,” or “coupled,” to another element, it can be directlyconnected or coupled to the other element or intervening elements may bepresent. In contrast, when an element is referred to as being “directlyconnected,” or “directly coupled,” to another element, there are nointervening elements present. Other words used to describe therelationship between elements should be interpreted in a like fashion(e.g., “between,” versus “directly between,” “adjacent,” versus“directly adjacent,” etc.).

The terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particularembodiments only and is not intended to be limiting of exampleembodiments of the invention. As used herein, the singular forms “a,”“an,” and “the,” are intended to include the plural forms as well,unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. As used herein, theterms “and/or” and “at least one of” include any and all combinations ofone or more of the associated listed items. It will be furtherunderstood that the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” and/or“including,” when used herein, specify the presence of stated features,integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do notpreclude the presence or addition of one or more other features,integers, steps, operations, elements, components, and/or groupsthereof.

It should also be noted that in some alternative implementations, thefunctions/acts noted may occur out of the order noted in the figures.For example, two figures shown in succession may in fact be executedsubstantially concurrently or may sometimes be executed in the reverseorder, depending upon the functionality/acts involved.

Spatially relative terms, such as “beneath”, “below”, “lower”, “above”,“upper”, and the like, may be used herein for ease of description todescribe one element or feature's relationship to another element(s) orfeature(s) as illustrated in the figures. It will be understood that thespatially relative terms are intended to encompass differentorientations of the device in use or operation in addition to theorientation depicted in the figures. For example, if the device in thefigures is turned over, elements described as “below” or “beneath” otherelements or features would then be oriented “above” the other elementsor features. Thus, term such as “below” can encompass both anorientation of above and below. The device may be otherwise oriented(rotated 90 degrees or at other orientations) and the spatially relativedescriptors used herein are interpreted accordingly.

Although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describevarious elements, components, regions, layers and/or sections, it shouldbe understood that these elements, components, regions, layers and/orsections should not be limited by these terms. These terms are used onlyto distinguish one element, component, region, layer, or section fromanother region, layer, or section. Thus, a first element, component,region, layer, or section discussed below could be termed a secondelement, component, region, layer, or section without departing from theteachings of the present invention.

Referring to the drawing, the FIGURE shows a part of a hospitalinformation system 1 comprising a client machine 2 and a server machine4. The hospital information system 1 is an integrated system providing anumber of taskflows comprising a number of tasks and their connectionsdefining and organizing operational processes in the hospitalenvironment. This is achieved by providing the required information tothe specific client machine 2 within the hospital and connecting thecollected information between the different users in the hospitalenvironment.

In order to allow the creation and modification of such taskflows withinthe hospital environment without the need for the manufacturer of thehospital information system 1 to intervene, a user 6 who wishes tocreate or modify a taskflow is provided a taskflow editing tool 8 thatallows such creation and modification of taskflows. Compared to thepossibilities of the manufacturer concerning the manipulation of thedata structure of the taskflows, the taskflow editing tool 8 provided tothe user 6 has a limited, predefined number of editing options. Thescope of these editing options may be adjusted to safety and integritypolicies of the manufacturer, the specific legislation or certainhospital policies.

The user 6 then creates a user-defined taskflow 10 by means of thetaskflow editing tool 8 by defining tasks and their connections etc.During the editing of taskflow 10 by the user 6 as well after completionof all modifications, a control module 12 is automatically activated andtakes control of the taskflow module 14. Then, by means of the controlmodule 12 an automated test run of the user-defined taskflow 10 isperformed by executing the tasks 16 and checking this test run accordingto a number of criteria predefined in a control module 12. The resultsof this test run are then reported by the control module 12 to the user6 which allows the user to react to possible errors and problemsemerging during the test run by modifying the creative taskflow 10accordingly.

Preferably, the test run performed by the control module 12 is conductedwithout any interaction with the user 6, such that the user 6 has nopossibility to interfere with the test run progress that is crucial toensure the safety and integrity of the created taskflow 10.

As shown in the FIGURE, the hospital information system 1 comprises aserver machine 4 and a client machine 2 and the taskflow is created bythe user 6 on the client machine 2, implying that the taskflow editingtool 8 preferably runs on the client machine 2. The test run performedby the control module 12, however, is preferably completely run on theserver machine 4, which means that only the back ends of each task 16have to be started. The front ends that correspond to the userinteraction part of each task 16, usually run on client machines withinthe hospital environment corresponding to client machine 2. These frontends may be started as well by the control module 12 during the testrun, however this is not necessary. Where input data for the executionof a certain task 16 is needed to perform the test run, anonymous inputdata 18 is used during the test run.

During the execution of the task 16 in the test run, the control module12 checks the test run according to a number of predefined criteria.Preferably, these criteria comprise the executability of the taskflow 10on the technical resources provided by the hospital information system1. By means of information technology and resource strategies 20, thecontrol module 12 is able to recognize if modifications relating to theinformation technology integration are necessary and whether resourceshortages are to be expected during execution of the created taskflow10. This test regarding the integrability of the taskflow 10 and thetask 16 into the given information technology infrastructure includesboth local and remote services such as the availability of enterpriseservices.

The preset criteria checked by the control module 12 further preferablycomprise the conformity of the taskflow 10 with a communication protocolof the tasks 16 and/or their connections. To this end, the controlmodule 12 has communication strategies 22 in order to recognize whichcorrections and modifications concerning the task communication arenecessary and where certain configurations have to be added. By means ofthese configurable communication strategies 22, the taskflow 10 isprovided with the anonymized input data 18 and the tasks 16 are providedwith action commands in a particularly flexible, automated and adaptableway. In a similar manner, the output data created during the tast run ofthe taskflow 10 is evaluated specifically to both tasks and taskflows,wherein task specifical strategies can be configured within the controlmodule 12.

The preset criteria checked during the test run furthermore preferablycomprise the compliance of the taskflow 10 with a predefined performancecriterion. The control module 12 is able to predict and/or measure andevaluate, whether the chosen connection between the tasks 16 yields theoptimal performance during execution of the task flow 10. This may alsoinclude quality of service features such as scalability, performance,availability or limitations due to few or suboptimal licenses which maybe automatically determined or at least predicted with data measuredduring the test run of taskflow 10 and accordant evaluation strategies.

Furthermore, the preset criteria checked during the test run preferablycomprise the compliance of the taskflow 10 with a predefined risk and/orsafety criterion. During the test run of the task flow 10, the controlmodule 12 checks for risks that emerge or are to be expected and maytherefore evaluate the risk potential of, the creative taskflow 10 bymeans of configurable security and risk strategies 24. The evaluatedrisk potential is then reported to the user 6.

Furthermore, the result of the check regarding the predefined riskand/or safety criterion is preferably stored with the task flow. Forexample, the control module 12 may determine a configurable maturitylevel of the taskflow 10 and can store this maturity level with thecreated taskflow 10 in form of a certificate. This certificate thenallows an immediate evaluation of the created taskflow 10 for otherusers within the hospital environment and may also help in the decisionwhether to use this created taskflow 10 before or after consultation ofthe manufacturer or further non-automated manual tests.

Preferably, the control module 12 has improvement and error strategies26 comprising a number of predefined improvement and/or problem solutionmodifications, by which means the control module 12 may chose a subsetfrom these modifications on the basis of the results of the check in thetest run. The chosen improvements or error solutions may then bereported to the user 6. Preferably, these modifications areautomatically integrated by the control module 12 into the createdtaskflow 10, thus automatically improving and solving problems occurringduring the test run of the taskflow 10 and optimizing the taskflow 10 inview of the predefined checked criteria. This means that for each task16 the control module 12 intercepts occurring errors, evaluates theseerrors by means of the improvement and error strategies 26 and chooses aconfigurable and situation-specific solution action. If configured, thecontrol module 12 automatically executes this solution action and in anycase reports the solution action to the user 6.

The control module 12 can further recognize by way of configurablestrategies whether the task flow 10 can be started and stopped, whichmeans whether an intermediate state of the taskflow 10 may be suspendedand afterwards resumed and whether the taskflow complies todomain-specific and configurable protocols regarding the communicationstrategies between tasks 16 (e.g. a “findings protocol”) or between atask 16 and the taskflow module 14 (e.g. a “detached protocol”).

In a hospital environment, the tasks 16 are physically executed bymedical personnel. For a simple management of the authorizations of thespecific personnel, tasks are therefore supplied with so-called rolesthat define a certain scope of authorizations that are required toexecute the specific task 16. The control module 12, during the test runof the taskflow 10 can also check whether the proper role has beensupplied to the specific task 16 created in the taskflow 10 and may addthe required roles during the test run if errors occur during executionof the taskflow 10. Therefore, it is also possible that a user 6 createsa taskflow 10 requiring roles that the user himself does not possess.Since the control module 12 can work with several roles andauthorizations, this allows a specifically flexible creation oftaskflows 10 in the hospital environment.

Due to the resource strategies 20 of the control module 12, whichmeasures the resource usage by the taskflow 10 and the tasks 16 and therequired availability of hardware and special hardware, the optimizationstrategies 26 also include possibilities to optimize resource usages andoptimization of the connections between the tasks 16.

Advantages of the invention should now be apparent. In particular, theinvention permits the creation of taskflows within the hospitalenvironment and without interaction with the manufacturer of thehospital information system. The created taskflows are automaticallychecked according to a set of predefined criteria regarding safety,quality of service and hospital policies. The evaluation of the createdtaskflow is done live and online. Since the test run is performed by thecontrol module 12 without interaction with the user, the technicaldimensions of the newly created taskflow do not have to be known by theuser, who is usually a physician, rather the user may only be concernedwith the medical aspects of the created taskflow while the technicalaspects are handled by the control module 12. If errors occur during thetest run, the user is only provided with valid solutions or an automaticsolution is applied by the control module 12.

The control module 12 in a way takes the role of the manufacturer duringthe creation of a taskflow and conducts a flexible and adapted qualityassurance on site within the hospital environment. This also allows theusers to exchange created taskflows with each other, also beyond theboundaries of the specific department or hospital, since the controlmodule 12 works independently of the specific taskflow, user 6 andenvironment and automatically works with the adapted taskflow in the newenvironment, whereby it is recognized whether certain tasks are not yetimplemented in the destination environment or if a wrong softwaresolution is installed. In summary, the method and apparatus according tothe invention provides for a particularly flexible and adaptable way ofcreating taskflows within the hospital environment.

A latitude of modification, change and substitution is intended in theforegoing disclosure and in some instances some features of theinvention will be employed without a corresponding use of otherfeatures. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the appended claims beconstrued broadly and in a manner consistent with the spirit and scopeof the invention herein.

REFERENCE NUMERALS

-   1 hospital information system-   2 client machine-   4 server machine-   6 user-   8 taskflow editing tool-   10 user-defined taskflow-   12 control module-   14 taskflow module-   16 task-   18 anonymous input data-   20 IT and resource strategies-   22 communication strategies-   24 security and risk strategies-   26 improvement and error strategies

The patent claims filed with the application are formulation proposalswithout prejudice for obtaining more extensive patent protection. Theapplicant reserves the right to claim even further combinations offeatures previously disclosed only in the description and/or drawings.

The example embodiment or each example embodiment should not beunderstood as a restriction of the invention. Rather, numerousvariations and modifications are possible in the context of the presentdisclosure, in particular those variants and combinations which can beinferred by the person skilled in the art with regard to achieving theobject for example by combination or modification of individual featuresor elements or method steps that are described in connection with thegeneral or specific part of the description and are contained in theclaims and/or the drawings, and, by way of combineable features, lead toa new subject matter or to new method steps or sequences of methodsteps, including insofar as they concern production, testing andoperating methods.

References back that are used in dependent claims indicate the furtherembodiment of the subject matter of the main claim by way of thefeatures of the respective dependent claim; they should not beunderstood as dispensing with obtaining independent protection of thesubject matter for the combinations of features in the referred-backdependent claims. Furthermore, with regard to interpreting the claims,where a feature is concretized in more specific detail in a subordinateclaim, it should be assumed that such a restriction is not present inthe respective preceding claims.

Since the subject matter of the dependent claims in relation to theprior art on the priority date may form separate and independentinventions, the applicant reserves the right to make them the subjectmatter of independent claims or divisional declarations. They mayfurthermore also contain independent inventions which have aconfiguration that is independent of the subject matters of thepreceding dependent claims.

Further, elements and/or features of different example embodiments maybe combined with each other and/or substituted for each other within thescope of this disclosure and appended claims.

Still further, any one of the above-described and other example featuresof the present invention may be embodied in the form of an apparatus,method, system, computer program, computer readable medium and computerprogram product. For example, of the aforementioned methods may beembodied in the form of a system or device, including, but not limitedto, any of the structure for performing the methodology illustrated inthe drawings.

Even further, any of the aforementioned methods may be embodied in theform of a program. The program may be stored on a computer readablemedium and is adapted to perform any one of the aforementioned methodswhen run on a computer device (a device including a processor). Thus,the storage medium or computer readable medium, is adapted to storeinformation and is adapted to interact with a data processing facilityor computer device to execute the program of any of the above mentionedembodiments and/or to perform the method of any of the above mentionedembodiments.

The computer readable medium or storage medium may be a built-in mediuminstalled inside a computer device main body or a removable mediumarranged so that it can be separated from the computer device main body.Examples of the built-in medium include, but are not limited to,rewriteable non-volatile memories, such as ROMs and flash memories, andhard disks. Examples of the removable medium include, but are notlimited to, optical storage media such as CD-ROMs and DVDs;magneto-optical storage media, such as MOs; magnetism storage media,including but not limited to floppy disks (trademark), cassette tapes,and removable hard disks; media with a built-in rewriteable non-volatilememory, including but not limited to memory cards; and media with abuilt-in ROM, including but not limited to ROM cassettes; etc.Furthermore, various information regarding stored images, for example,property information, may be stored in any other form, or it may beprovided in other ways.

Example embodiments being thus described, it will be obvious that thesame may be varied in many ways. Such variations are not to be regardedas a departure from the spirit and scope of the present invention, andall such modifications as would be obvious to one skilled in the art areintended to be included within the scope of the following claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of operating a hospital informationsystem that includes a client machine running a front end of auser-defined taskflow and a server machine running a back end of theuser-defined taskflow, the user-defined taskflow defining operationalprocedures to diagnose and treat patients within a hospital environment,comprising: providing, by the hospital information system, a taskflowediting tool with a limited number of editing options to a user of thehospital information system; creating, by the client machine of thehospital information system, the user-defined taskflow defining aplurality of tasks associated with diagnostics and treatment andconnections between each of the plurality of tasks; performing, by thehospital information system, an automated test run completely on theserver machine by running the back end of each task of the user-definedtaskflow on the server machine without running the front end of theuser-defined taskflow on the client machine such that the user-definedtaskflow is completely run on the server machine without interactionwith the user, wherein performing the automated test run completely onthe server machine includes, executing the plurality of tasks of theuser-defined taskflow on the server machine during the automated testrun, inputting anonymous data during the automated test run for eachtask of the user-defined taskflow that requires input data, checking ifmodifications relating to information technology integration arenecessary and whether resource shortages are expected during executionof the plurality of tasks of the user-defined taskflow based on theexecution of the test run of the plurality of tasks, reporting resultsof the checking of the executed plurality of tasks in the automated testrun to the user, and automatically modifying the user-defined taskflowbased on the results of the checking such that the modified user-definedtaskflow integrates the information technology and avoids the resourceshortages; and running, by the hospital information system, the modifieduser-defined taskflow such that the back end of each task of themodified user-defined taskflow is run on the server machine and thefront end of each task of the modified user-defined taskflow is run onthe client machine.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the checkingincludes checking the executability of the user-defined taskflow on oneor more technical resources provided by the hospital information system.3. The method of claim 2, wherein the checking includes checking theconformity of the user-defined taskflow with a communication protocol ofat least one of the task and the connection.
 4. The method of claim 3,wherein the checking includes checking the compliance of theuser-defined taskflow with a performance criterion.
 5. The method ofclaim 4, wherein the checking includes checking the compliance of theuser-defined taskflow with at least one of a risk and safety criterion.6. The method of claim 5, wherein the results of the automated test runregarding the at least one of risk and safety criterion is stored withthe user-defined taskflow.
 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:choosing a subset from a number of at least one of improvement andproblem solution modifications on the basis of the results of theautomated test run, wherein the subset is reported to the user.
 8. Themethod of claim 6, further comprising: automated modification of theuser-defined taskflow according to the chosen subset of the at least oneof improvement and problem solution modifications.
 9. A hospitalinformation system that includes a client machine running a front end ofa user-defined taskflow and a server machine running a back end of theuser-defined taskflow, comprising: a client machine configured to createthe user-defined taskflow defining a plurality of tasks associated withdiagnostics and treatment and connections between each of the pluralityof tasks by the user using a taskflow editing tool with a limited numberof editing options provided to a user; and a server machine configuredto perform an automated test run completely on the server machine byrunning the back end of each task of the user-defined taskflow on theserver machine without running the front end of the user-definedtaskflow on the client machine such that the user-defined taskflow iscompletely run on the server machine without interaction with the user,wherein performing the automated test run completely on the servermachine includes, executing the plurality of tasks of the user-definedtaskflow on the server machine during the automated test run, inputtinganonymous data during the automated test run for each task of theuser-defined taskflow that requires input data, checking ifmodifications relating to information technology integration arenecessary and whether resource shortages are expected during theexecution of the plurality of tasks of the user-defined taskflow basedon the execution of the test run of the plurality of tasks, reportingresults of the checking of the executed plurality of tasks in theautomated test run to the user, and automatically modifying theuser-defined taskflow based on the results of the checking such that themodified user-defined taskflow integrates the information technology andavoids the resource shortages; and wherein the hospital informationsystem is configured to run the modified user-defined taskflow such thatthe back end of each task of the modified user-defined taskflow is runon the server machine and the front end of each task of the modifieduser-defined taskflow is run on the client machine.
 10. A non-transitorycomputer readable medium including program segments for, when executedon a hospital information system that includes a client machine runninga front end of a user-defined taskflow and a server machine running aback end of the user-defined taskflow, causing the hospital informationsystem to: provide a taskflow editing tool with a limited number ofediting options to a user of the client machine; create the user-definedtaskflow defining a plurality of tasks associated with diagnostics andtreatment and connections between each of the plurality of tasks;perform an automated test run completely on the server machine byrunning the back end of each task of the user-defined taskflow on theserver machine without running the front end of the user-definedtaskflow on the client machine such that the user-defined taskflow iscompletely run on the server machine without interaction with the user,wherein performing the automated test run completely on the servermachine includes, executing the plurality of tasks of the user-definedtaskflow on the server machine during the automated test run, inputtinganonymous data during the automated test run for each task of theuser-defined taskflow that requires input data, checking ifmodifications relating to information technology integration arenecessary and whether resource shortages are expected during theexecution of the plurality of tasks of the user-defined taskflow basedon the execution of the test run of the plurality of tasks, reportingresults of the checking of the executed plurality of tasks in theautomated test run to the user, and automatically modifying theuser-defined taskflow based on the results of the checking such that themodified user-defined taskflow integrates the information technology andavoids the resource shortages; and run, by the hospital informationsystem, the modified user-defined taskflow such that the back end ofeach task of the modified user-defined taskflow is run on the servermachine and the front end of each task of the modified user-definedtaskflow is run on the client machine.